Cornell 7 Defendant Petitions To Remove AG Letitia James From Case, Jane Doe Reports ‘Swatting’ Incident 

Last week, we reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office launched a review into Cornell University’s response to one of its students reporting that she had been raped by seven members of the college’s Chi Pi fraternity, and now one of the men named as defendants in the alleged rape victim’s lawsuit has filed a petition to block James’ appointment as special prosecutor in the case.

According to NBC News, attorneys for Gillio Lopes, one of the seven accused students, who has denied the allegation against him, filed an Article 78 petition in Albany County Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing that James should be removed from the case because she has “unequivocally demonstrated a bias and presumption of guilt against the defendants named in the Civil Case.” The petition also names New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appointed James as special prosecutor, meaning she’ll decide whether criminal charges are warranted.

“My office enforces our state’s laws to protect all New Yorkers. I am committed to leading a comprehensive investigation they can trust, guided only by the facts, the evidence, and the law,” James said in a statement on Monday.

But Lopes’ petition points to something James posted on X three days before her appointment was announced.

“What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable,” she wrote. “I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you.”

According to the petition, that post “made clear that she has formed an opinion about the case” and that “she has already reached the conclusion that Petitioner and the other named Defendants are guilty.”

“As Governor Hochul has said, the public needs confidence in the individual leading this investigation. AG James, based upon her very public statements validating Jane Doe, certainly doesn’t instill confidence in a fair investigation,” Stuart Bernstein, one of Lopes’ attorneys, said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, another defendant attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said Tuesday that he welcomes the university’s decision to have an independent review of its handling of the allegations made by the alleged victim, which former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates will lead.

“In our experience, Cornell’s investigations have generally been thorough. That said, we have also seen due process problems that have affected respondents, and on at least two occasions we have gone to federal court to try to address those issues. In this case, we do not agree with the outcome as to Mr. Lopes,” Miltenberg said.

It’s worth noting that Lopes’ attorneys aren’t the only ones who don’t think the Cornell 7, as the group of men has been dubbed across the internet, will get a fair shake with James at the helm of the case. Last week, we reported that President Donald Trump — the man who took out a full-page ad calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, and continued to insist the group of young, Black and brown victims of injustice guilty even after they became the Exonerated Five — told reporters, “I feel badly for whoever she’s looking at, because they won’t get a fair shake” with James leading the case.

Of course, we all know Trump is still salty because James previously beat the 34-time felon in civil court, multiple times, actually, and Trump tried to weaponize the DOJ to exact revenge on the New York AG by charging her with bank fraud, but failed to convict her on anything, multiple times, actually.

Also, you know, rapists of a feather and all that.

In other news, Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told CNN that his client was targeted earlier this week in a swatting incident that left her “terrified.” Giuffra said police responded to a report of an active shooter at her parents’ home on Tuesday evening, and they pointed weapons at Jane Doe’s boyfriend, her brother, and her father after receiving a bogus tip that “someone was killing people in the house.”

“A SWAT team with assault rifles, heavily armed tactical gear, drew guns,” Giuffra said. “And they were doing what they were supposed to, responding to an appropriate threat.” 

Giuffra said his client was “there, screaming, ‘Stop! Stop!” and that she has received “multiple threats” in recent days, including threatening phone calls. He said the alleged swatting incident was a dangerous escalation of those threats.

“Somebody could have been killed,” he said. “This has gone too far. This has really gone too far.”

Meanwhile, Giuffra also told the Associated Press this week that Jane Doe was “misled” about the status of the criminal investigation after reporting her alleged gang rape to campus police in 2024, a few weeks after she said it happened. He said the Cornell University Police Department gave her the impression that a criminal investigation was still ongoing, when, in fact, it had ended almost as soon as it began. As we previously reported, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced he had reopened the case shortly after Jane Doe’s civil lawsuit was filed, which drew massive national attention to the case. In 2024, he declined to go forward with a criminal case within days of the woman giving her first interviews to Cornell police.

From AP:

Van Houten has said that he asked Cornell’s police department to convey the decision to the woman, who is referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, but never spoke personally to her or her lawyer.

Giuffra said the woman was told that the criminal investigation was ongoing.

“I think she was misled. She was told it was still — they weren’t going to prosecute, but they were still investigating,” Giuffra said. “I was involved with this case early on. I thought they were still investigating. It was news to me that they weren’t doing anything.”

Giuffra added that at the time, he assumed investigators just needed more time to speak with witnesses and build a case.

“But nothing was being done, and we didn’t know that,” Giuffra said.

Jane Doe’s case continues to receive national attention, outrage, and, of course, the scrutiny of people who simply do not believe women when they say they have been assaulted. We’ll continue to update the story as more information becomes available.

SEE ALSO:

Prosecutors Reopen Investigation Into Gang Rape Allegations At Cornell

Cornell Gang Rape: Fraternity Text Messages Revealed

Letitia James Launches Probe Into Handling Of Cornell Rape Allegations

Imagine If The ‘Cornell 7’ Case Occurred At An HBCU [Op-Ed]